


Sharp and Silver

by Killtheselights



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Demon Kylo Ren, F/M, Germanic Paganism, Gruss von Krampus, It's a German Fairy Tale, Krampus - Freeform, Krampus and Perchta AU, Like Kids are Definitely Gonna Die, Meet-Cute, Merry Christmas, Perchta - Freeform, Smut, Uses of German, monster fucking, shit's gonna get dark, spoiler free
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:20:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killtheselights/pseuds/Killtheselights
Summary: The Krampus Kylo is not used to competition. One night he discovers a beautiful spirit putting silver coins in the shoes of the children he's supposed to be collecting.He did not expect to fall under her spell, but enchantments take many forms...A merry Krampus/Perchta AU for your holiday season.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey
Comments: 16
Kudos: 150
Collections: Winter Gems 2020





	Sharp and Silver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheLadyoftheHouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyoftheHouse/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, MonsterFuckers. Have a spoiler-free demon romance for your Yuletide. 
> 
> I had the idea because Em/TheLadyoftheHouse loves Krampus/Perchta art and stories, so I wanted to give her one and add something a little darker to the Star Wars Advent Calendar. Many thanks to QueenofCarrotFlowers for helping give the idea shape.
> 
> Some caveats:  
> This is based on Germanic Pagan Christmas traditions! Krampus and Perchta operate in different areas but can often overlap. Either way, they're not the happy elves we know in the US who give coal, but instead they beat, kidnap or maim the naughty. Nice!
> 
> I played with the lore a bit loosely, but Rey is Perchta, the goddess of Weavers with two forms, and Kylo is Krampus, the black-furred horned demon who kidnaps misbehaving children and carries them off in a sack on his back. That's what you really need to know to get moving, but I did the research, so there are fun details for the curious/observant!

He had not wanted to know her, find her, love her.

He had only been looking to do his job when he fell under her spell, a spell which was not magic at all.

Kylo was not supposed to know love. But that was the power she possessed.

It had come to him unbidden, this unnatural affection. As the day gave way to night and the mantle of sleep descended on the village, he had come to the house to check on the children, as was his mission.

The naughty children, the ones with the messy faces, who refused to tidy their rooms and set out their shoes at night, were his for the taking.

He had grown strong over the centuries, strong enough to carry the sack and wield the switch and bear the chains of servitude to which he had been cast.

It was his purpose; he was to deliver punishment. He was to maintain order.

He who was born of chaos was meant to seek it out, to remove chaotic little ones, to create order where he had once brewed discord. It was his purpose. 

But she had her own purpose, her own decree, though neither knew how the other would interfere, how their paths would cross and their destinies would entwine.

He arrived to the first house in the village. It was spotless, the little children fast asleep in their beds.

An unlucky start. He was sure he would be rewarded in time; that’s why he patrolled these little villages, after all. A different one each night, every single one sure to have naughty children for him to take back to his master.

But as he kept traveling, more and more houses would be set this way: immaculate, with happily dozing younglings.

He quickly found his temper flaring. How was he to collect the naughty children if someone was making them behave?

The only other thing the houses had in common was that the shoes that had been left neatly in front of the house all contained the same silver coins.

He looked at the snow just beyond the roof eaves.

They were faint, but he could just make out footprints leading to the next house, one foot noticeably larger than the other. 

_Got him,_ Kylo thought. Carefully, he crept on his hooved feet to the next home, and the next, following in the trail of his new competitor.

He knew he was wasting valuable time, time that could have been used to seek out the naughty children, but he soon found that almost every house he entered had the coin-bearing shoes, all in neat little rows by the door.

He knew the priest Luke had tried to banish him before, but the foolish old man had been bested. But Luke's methods were not like this. This was someone new. Kylo staggered faster, his fur growing damp with sweat and melting snow.

A strange sound alighted on the air. It was the sweet metallic clanging of bells, gentle and clear as if made by the wind itself. Kylo froze, diving behind a woodpile. The sound was coming from the other side of the street. Carefully, he crept up closer to the woodpile; his rival must be making the sound. He would have to sneak up on him and take his revenge. 

Gingerly, so as not to reveal his horns over the pile, Kylo peered through a hole in the wood.

It was not a priest he saw, not a jolly saint, but a beautiful woman, clad in white and radiant as newly-fallen snow on a full-moon night. The sight of her brought out the poetry in black-hearted Kylo, who had never seen anything or anyone so beautiful. She moved with the powerful grace of an ice storm as she placed coins in the shoes of children at the next house and began to cross the lane. 

She seemed to radiate magic, which didn’t surprise Kylo in the slightest; he himself was magic, but a different, darker kind. But the magic seemed to compel him, too (yes, he told himself, the magic caused it), and he peered over the woodpile to watch her longer.

He thought her back was to him. He thought he would be safe, so recklessly he rose to get a better view of her, but as he peered over the stacks of logs, his tail swished wildly, sending several loose logs clattering onto the frozen cobblestones behind him. 

As the wood finished tumbling, he sank back down to the snow, heart racing. The beautiful witch turned her sharp face over her shoulder to him. 

He froze, completely still. Surely she could not see him. Surely not her. 

The moment was so tense that Kylo felt as if his own frigid chains were wrapping around his heart, but he did not move. After a moment, the soft bells started again, growing fainter, quieter, as his winter enchantress moved on to the next house, then the next. Kylo drifted from woodpile to house, house to alley, alley to stable, wherever he could safely hide and watch the snowy enchantress work her magic.

At the end of the street, her sound vanished and she disappeared, melting into the snowdrifts themselves. Though Kylo chased after her shadow, trying to follow her delicate footprints, he found himself crestfallen to discover that she was lost to him. Though she had cast her spells through the village where he could easily track her, he had no way of knowing where she would appear next, if at all.

Even more alarming, he noted as the sky lightened to a royal blue, was that in his distraction, the sack upon his back was light, empty of any naughty children, as all had been well-behaved, eagerly awaiting the indulgence of the pretty sorceress in white.

Kylo’s chains were heavy as he created an opening in the earth and trudged down into his master’s lair.

This would not bode well for him.

For days he kept up his rounds. Days turned into weeks, and in every village, he tried to check for silver coins in the children’s shoes, listen for the chiming of bells in the wind, but the beautiful, benevolent spirit was nowhere to be found. He had to take more and more children, more souls to sacrifice to his master, and his sack was painfully heavy now, thanks in no small part to the severe beating his master had given him after his last failure. The wounds were slow to heal, and he had to make up for the lost souls by punishing children for even minor bad behavior. Punishing them as he had once been punished.

He did not regret his misdeeds, however. After a few centuries of the same duties, the appearance of the snow witch had been a delightful reprieve. A challenge. A gift. And despite his better instincts, he longed to see her again.

The New Year came, and he was dismissed from scouring the surface for the season. The Christkind had come; it was Kylo’s time to return underground until the next winter. Year after year, it had been the same for as long as he could remember.

And yet, there was a strange spark of hope now, something like life again building inside him, and he would remember the winter witch.

A year passed. Two. The Krampus Kylo made his rounds, always alert now, always waiting for this spirit, but their paths would not cross. He started to believe himself mad, that he had imagined her. But just when he had given up, with a sack half-filled with squirming brats, he heard the chimes on the wind.

She had started at the other end of the village, he realized. This was too good to be true. He would see her again, finally, after so long waiting.

But he wasn’t sure he wished to be seen.

He listened for her, the crunching of snow under her feet and the chiming that seemed to surround her growing closer now, instead of further away.

Quickly, he slipped to the side of a house, crouching under a window as she inspected the front. He had not been to this house. Apparently it was quite adequate, for she put coins in the shoes at the front door and turned away. Kylo pressed himself as tight as he could against the side.

She was more beautiful than he remembered, skin warm as the full moon and hair like the finest mahogany in the forests. It was harder to watch her in secret now, to creep from house to house and marvel at her work, but still, he was satisfied with his haul for the night. His master would be pleased with the souls he’d caught. He had to see her again. He would make it work.

After all, he had a plan.

He watched as she went down the street, quicker than she had the last time he had seen her. He had already taken the bad children, which she seemed to note with a small look of surprise each time she looked at a messy, yet child-free house. When the children in question started making noise in the pack on his back, he’d take a switch to the whole sack, silencing them. 

Still, when she was satisfied with the state of the homes, she left her traditional silver coins, and continued her amble down the street, humming calmly to herself. It was cute when she did that. Why did she have to do that?

When the night drew on and she seemed satisfied, Kylo watched her disappear into the wind from a perch behind a hay bale at the edge of town. 

Certain she was gone, he tiptoed over to the shoes, each with a silver coin inside.

He was powerful at magic, the dark kind, but he knew it would help him now. He would be able to take one of the coins she left behind and use it to find her.

This house had several children. He hadn’t had to take any of them, to his great consternation, but one was quite young, barely walking. He’d take a coin out of that child’s shoes. The child wouldn’t know to miss it. 

He slipped his large, fur-covered hand inside, trying to pull out the coin. He was surprised to find that there was a second one in there already.

Surely the white witch did not make those sorts of mistakes. Perhaps she left two in many exceptional children's’ shoes and he hadn’t noticed before. That must have been it.

Regardless, the dawn was close at hand, his pack was heavy, and the night had been cold. 

With the coin cradled gently in his palm, Kylo disappeared back to his master, cherishing his secret joy. 

  
  


Though the coin was silver, the magic it contained had been worth its weight in gold.

Kylo could sense the signature of her magic, her essence, her scent on the item, since she was its creator, after all. He had a nose for these things, a sense for locating and tracking, as he had to find his assigned villages with ease. He knew he’d be able to find her again easily. It was only a matter of when.

He had been waiting for a perfect night all season in which to try to find her again. As the season came to a close, however, he hadn’t made his move. With a heavy sack and a light heart, he decided to follow her on the last night of the Christmas season after he had finished his duties with a few hours to spare.

She was not far, and he was able to travel underground to find her. He followed the shining trail of coins left behind in shoes until he was able to spot her.

She didn’t see him.

Still, he dove behind a house.

When she moved on a bit, far enough away that he was certain she couldn’t see him peering from several homes away, he crept closer to her.

She disappeared inside a house. He disappeared down an alley.

This continued down the street. He would occasionally swat at the sack if the children made too much noise, and he’d carry his chains carefully to prevent too much rattling, but her own music in the wind seemed to drown out his sound.

Soon, too soon, the sun rose again, and she vanished with the night.

It was Christmas morning.

He would have to wait another year to see her.

And so he did.

Years passed in this way; Kylo would continue meeting his quota of naughty children, and when that was completed, if time allowed, he would try to find his secret sorceress. 

He would dart between buildings and trees and other coverings to watch her, mysterious and lovely and haunting as she was, even if it meant his back would ache from carrying his filled sack for too long when he finally slipped down into the darkness of the underside when morning came. She filled him with a strange peace a bound demon like him was not supposed to know. He could not explain it and he didn’t dare dwell on this strange circumstance.

But as he watched her one night (this time, he’d climbed a tree), he could almost guess at the cause.

She was perfect. She was beautiful and wonderful and even the wind sang for her.

And he was...this.

Occasionally, he remembered what it was like _before_. He had been little more than a child when he was taken, a child of an exceptionally foul temper, of dangerous temperament and a coal-black heart. He had been chosen for this job, transformed for it, and only in the silence and stillness of an exceptionally cold night could he remember being a child, shivering in his parents’ empty home, the couple far away on some diplomatic business. He could remember running away into the forest. If he was careful and still, he could remember his true name.

But he didn’t want to remember those things. He couldn’t bear to remember being anything else. He didn’t think too much of his reflection, of what he was compared to the forest goddess. He was a hairy beast with horns and hooves and a too-big nose and a too-long tongue and a misbehaving tail and he’d never thought about it. Never questioned it.

He must be this monster, or he’d regret his own continued existence. Or he’d remember the chains and dream of when he must have been free.

If dreaming of the snow witch was dangerous, _that_ was a dream too deadly. 

So he never thought to bring himself before her. Shuffling along, envying the proximity of her ethereal shadow in the moonlight. 

It was enough, he told himself. He knew better.

Decades went by. Children were born, some were taken away with Kylo, others thrived to bear new children, who were then Kylo’s for the capturing. And yet he never brought himself before the Bright One, the woman gift-bringer.

Unbeknownst to him, she had taken note of his presence, of his footsteps in her shadow.

One night, as he watched her depart the village for the forest and prepared himself to part from her for perhaps the last time that season, he heard a beautiful sound carry to him on the wind. 

“You can come out, spirit. I know you’re there.”

Kylo froze. He’d never heard her speak before, he realized. Hum, yes. But never speak. Her voice was just as enchanting as the rest of her.

He’d also never seen her look right at him. For decades he’d been admiring her from afar, and now, only now, her strange forest-green eyes fell on him.

Oh, he realized too late. She was talking _to him_.

He emerged from behind a snow-covered pine.

“Me?” 

She nodded, gesturing him to come closer. She was smaller than he had expected, but her stance was no less regal. 

The snow crunched beneath his hooves as he waded through the empty field to get closer to her. 

When he was within arms’ reach, he finally spoke to her.

“How long have you known I was there?” he asked.

She shrugged one shoulder of her icy white dress. “Oh, years,” she replied nonchalantly. “You’re hard to miss.”

He appeared crestfallen, and she tapped her temple. 

“Horns,” she said. “I can always spot them.”

He reached a hand up to feel his horns self-consciously. 

“Among other tells,” she added.

“There are others?” he croaked out nervously. 

The winter goddess laughed, and she began to walk slowly around the snow-covered glen. 

“You might be invisible to the mortals, but not to me. I could hear your steps on the cobblestones. And your chains; they’re quite loud, actually,” she said, shooting him a taunting smile. “And you do talk to yourself. I hope you know that.”

He did not.

“It’s not really talk so much as...grumble. But I’ve heard you. Seen you. It’s nice to finally put a face to the sounds.”

“I did not seek to bother you,” he said, by way of apology. It was the best a creature of darkness like him could muster for politeness. He did not mistake her politeness for lying, so for that he was proud of himself.

She just smiled again. “It wasn’t a bother. Well, that’s not true. It was a bother at first. Until I realized I liked the company.”

“You liked having me around?”

“Yes. And if you would still join me, I’d like to see you again sometime.”  
Her smile was bright as the snowflakes against the roses. It was radiant.

He couldn’t refuse. “I would like that as well.”

“And maybe you would walk with me this time?”  
He grunted. “I think I could manage.”

She nodded appreciatively. “It would certainly make the night feel less lonesome, if you’d choose to come along.”

She walked towards him again, a hand outstretched.

“What do I call you?”

 _Krampus._ That’s what the mortals called him. He was a beast to them, and he was called the name of a beast.

His master had given him a name. It was no less bitter, but it was the name he responded to.

“Kylo,” he said. “That’s what I am called.”

He realized her hand still reached out to him, and he extended his hairy, clawed fingers to take hers, pale and delicate and lovely.

“What do I call you?” he asked softly.

“I have many names,” she said, eyes transfixed on their hands. “What do you choose to call me?”

He thought of the first time he saw her, standing alone in a snow-covered field, the moon as luminous as the sun, and the way she seemed to stand drinking it in, basking in the light, a sensation he had long forgotten.

The name seemed to come to him on the wind.

“Rey,” he said. “That’s your name?”

She smiled. “It’s one of them, now. I’m Rey.”

He dropped her hand nervously (he was not one for manners) and stepped back.

“I will follow you again, _Fraulein_ Rey, if that’s what you want.”

“I would like that,” she said. “I will look for you.”

The music seemed to emanate from her again, a sign their conversation was at an end, and she was preparing to depart, but she spoke as she turned back to him. 

"It's nice not to be alone for a change."

  
  


Christmas was upon him, but a reckless, foolish plan entered Kylo's mind and refused to disappear.

He wanted to see her and not be ashamed. He wanted her to look upon him with the same awe he must have looked at her.

One night. He had enough children for the season. It would suffice. 

He needed this. He had waited long enough. 

As soon as the last rays of sunlight vanished over the horizon, he trudged to the forest home of Frau Holda, the weaver, his sack on his back empty of all but a few items he would perhaps need later. 

A few knocks against her door, and her voice, clear as the howling wind, called for him to enter. He opened the door eagerly.

“Don’t just stand there,” she barked from her place by the fire. “You’ll let in the cold.”

His hooves tracked snow onto the wooden floor, but he was in too much of a rush to be polite to the older goddess. He slammed the door shut behind him. 

“Frau Holda,” he said to the purple-haired weaver. “I need you to enchant me.”  
She looked up from her weaving to cast a hard glare at the goat-demon.

“Guten abend, Kylo. A pleasure to see you, too.”

“Guten abend,” Kylo huffed, stepping deeper into the yarn-strewn home. “It’s urgent.”

With a sigh, Frau Holda put her work down. 

“I assume it must be. Come sit.” She gestured at the stool before her. Kylo folded his hooves beneath him on the threadbare rug.

“I need you to glamour me. Make me look different. Human.”

Frau Holda scoffed. “Whyever would you want to be human?”

“I just want to _look_ like one,” he explained. “Just for tonight.”

“Tonight? Tonight’s the evening of the Christkind. Don’t you have naughty brats to capture?”

“I have enough,” he said, as if his sharp tone would end that particular thread of conversation. “This is more pressing. Please, Frau.”

Frau Holda cocked an eyebrow at him. “If you are so sure, I can make it so,” she began, shifting from her work and rising to her feet. “But I will require something of you.”  
“Name it,” he said, eyes never leaving her. 

“What are you willing to give?” her eyes traced him curiously. Certainly, the shaggy demon couldn’t conceal much on his person. 

He uncurled his clawed hand.

“This,” he said, offering the silver coin to her. “It’s all I have.”

Frau Holda took it with no small amount of interest, turning the coin over and over in her palms.

“This belongs to you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, confused and slightly affronted. “It’s mine. What’s wrong?”

Frau Holda smiled to herself. “It’s nothing. You simply do not look like a particularly _good_ child.”

She glanced back up to him. “I’m not sure the Weiße Frau Perchta would be happy to know you have one of her coins, but I can’t say I haven’t coveted one.” 

She rose, crossed the room, and rifled through a basket. She lifted a spindle, closed one eye and assessed Kylo next to it. After a moment she nodded. 

“We have a deal, Kylo.” She kissed the spindle and offered it to him. “This will make you appear as a handsome-enough, mortal-enough man, just until sunrise on Christmas morning, as long as this is on your person.”

“I just have to hold onto this?” he asked, staring at the long silver object in his large paw-like hand.

“Just keep it on you,” she said. “Just touching you. I’m sure you’ll manage it.”

She stepped closer to him, and he felt not the warmth of her presence, but a distinctive chill. 

“And don’t stand too long in the light,” she whispered. “There’s no hiding the long shadow you cast.”

She turned her back to him, looking at the coin in her hand in the firelight. “This charm is worth a lot to you.”

“Yes,” he whispered, unwelcome honesty slipping over his tongue. “It is the only thing I have wanted for centuries.”

“Then make it worth it, _mein Schatz_ ,” she said. “You will probably not get this opportunity again.”

Once Kylo left the cabin and stepped into the dark of the pre-moonrise night, he felt his body start to change, and a chill came over him. His hooves grew light and clumsy, his legs felt thin and feeble beneath him, his tail disappeared, and he felt suddenly, horribly exposed.

As he looked down at his hands, he noticed that his claws had receded and his thick black fur had vanished, leaving him a pale-skinned, bare human shivering in the snow, the heavy chains shrinking to iron bracelets on his wrists and ankles.

He staggered clumsily to the singing stream, throwing his sack down to begin rifling through its contents. There were clothes he had found in a home at the end of the previous night, garments for a wealthy man that he was certain would not be missed. 

He stifled the shiver that seemed to overtake his strange, unfamiliar body. He pulled on the clothing as quickly as he could manage without releasing the spindle, pleased that it all more or less seemed to fit. The boots pinched a little and the trousers were too large, but the suit he had taken was certainly acceptable for his purpose. He pulled a dark cloak over his shoulders, grateful for the artificial warmth it provided this strange form. 

This accomplished, he knelt on the riverbank and swept the snow off the ice covering the stream. He could see his reflection now, and a familiar stranger’s face. Perhaps he remembered the dark hair falling down to his shoulders; perhaps he had imagined it. The long, lean face of the man he had become was startling. Maybe it had been his father’s? 

His eyes, still able to see clearly in the low light, were the same that had been gazing back at him for centuries; dark, weary, and full of malice and sorrows. But tonight, there was hope in them. Life.

He clutched the spindle tight in his hand. Perhaps this was what he would have become had he not run off, had he not been cursed to become the child-stealing monster.

Perhaps this was the man that would win the love of the white sorceress.

There was only one way to find out.

He still could sense her magic, feel her essence in a village beyond. He vanished underground, travelling through the underworld channels to find her. Thought he knew where to go, without the coin, it was much harder to trace her signature. After he vanished for the season, he knew he would not be able to find her again the next year. He couldn’t imagine how many years it would take to track her once more. He clutched the spindle desperately until he emerged. 

He appeared again in the outskirts of a village. He spotted her right away and ducked behind the trunk of an ancient tree in the forest. The moon had risen, and the village was quiet, its residents deep in sleep, dwellings blanketed in another fresh layer of snow. She was radiant in the moonlight, her white attire glowing like the snow itself. 

She didn’t notice him. She seemed to be looking behind her down the lane as she walked. Seeking someone.

He slipped the spindle into his pocket and began to move, quickly and silently as possible down the lane, no longer horned or jangling or grumbling. His heart, feeling increasingly more mortal, more human, pounded in his chest. 

She did not stop and the houses. She did not place her gifts in shoes. She only glanced in the windows. She traveled beyond the village and out into the clearing beyond. There was a melancholy about her. The wind did not sing.

Emboldened, Kylo stepped forward.

“ _Fraulein_ , are you well?”

She jerked her head to look at him. Her eyes danced over his form, from his feet (feet, not hooves now) to his head, just as hairy but hornless. She saw him now, and he was not afraid. A small smile quirked up her mouth.

“ _Mein Herr_ , shouldn’t you be in bed? Tomorrow is a holy day.”

He smiled, the strange sensation wickedly delightful. “I’m afraid I cannot sleep with all the excitement.” He cocked his head at her. “But I could ask you the same question.”

“Unfinished business,” she said.

“Ah,” he said, a facsimile of sympathy, if he even knew how to really express that sort of emotion. “What kind of business could one have on a holy night like this?”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “Seeking out some old acquaintances. Pondering the new ones in the coming year. Trifling things, _mein Herr_. Nothing to concern yourself with.”

He stepped closer to her. She seemed to relax as he removed the distance between them.

“Then I will not concern myself with your worries, but only your pleasures. Would you like some company?”  
He offered her a hand, bare and pale and cold, but her skin met his with no resistance, and though she was white as the snow around them, her touch was warm, sparking against his hand.

“I would very much like that.”

He didn’t know how they managed to spend so much time wandering the forest, the village, hand in hand, saying many words but very little at all. Their stories were fables, their answers evasions. But she drew in closer to him, taking his arm, and he breathed in the scents of her, a warm fire and mulled wine and frost and damp earth. He’d never been this close to her before. He hadn’t let himself know that he’d wanted to.

His hand kept returning to feel the sharp spindle in his pocket, but it was there, always there. He was safe and free and eager to know her more. She did not let on what she really was, as much as she could avoid it, and he tried not to let on that he knew, that she had met him. 

When they had run out of paths to travel but not out of moonlight, it seemed that the only option they had was to part. Rey took her arm back and their fingers separated dreadfully. The chiming on the wind seemed almost mournful to Kylo’s ears. 

“It is getting late,” Rey said quietly, wistfully. “You must have a family to return to. You should be going. I don’t want to keep you from enjoying the festivities tomorrow.”

“I have nowhere else I’d rather be,” he replied calmly, trying not to let any more space grow between them. “And now I have unfinished business as well.”

“And what is that?” she asked, brows furrowed.

Kylo had not known love or intimacy or tenderness, but he knew that her pale pink lips were tempting him beyond even his warped sense of reason. He bent forward and kissed her gently, surprised again by her warmth despite the chill around them.

She seemed receptive to his caress, though when he drew back, her forest-green eyes were wide with surprise. Surprise, and something else, a feeling he was too comfortable with. 

Desire.

Their next kisses were not so uncertain, so chaste and delicate. Though he wore the skin of a man, Kylo’s mouth was rough, his teeth and tongue moving indelicately across her lips and onto her throat. He couldn’t help biting and nipping and licking apologetically wherever he could, human though he appeared. 

Rey moaned, little whimpers with her mouth, gusts of wind swirling the fresh snow around them.

He lowered her onto the stump of a fallen ancient tree and stood between her legs. He removed his cloak and swept it over the stump to protect her. She encouraged his hands, big but sturdy and lacking the damaging claws, to touch her, caress her, feel her through the layers of rich white fabrice she wore. Her waist, her belly, her breasts, things that a demon like him was expected to ogle, to covet, but never be given willingly, and there was more delight for it. They were feverish and reckless, and absolutely mad with touch.

“Please,” she whispered. 

Her hands found him, caressed him, begged him.

“We are safe here,” she whispered. 

She guided him to trace up her legs, over her fine wool stockings and higher, her skin soft and warm despite the harsh flush to his own skin from the cold and the exertion and the want he should not have. His fingers passed a blade strapped to her thigh, shining silver as her coins, but he could feel the magic on it. The curved knife was wicked, horrendously wicked. He did not wonder as to its purpose.

He hitched her skirts over her waist as he explored the warmth between her thighs, and she gasped and moaned through the trees around them at his frantic but sensuous touch. Soon, she pulled his mouth back to her, giving more orders with tongue but no voice. He carefully managed to free himself from his own unwieldy trousers. 

She curled her arms around his neck, a strange flush filling her own cheeks. She was warm, so shockingly warm despite the cold nipping at even the smallest patches of his exposed skin, but he could not shiver. He could even believe he felt himself sweating.

He took her in the forest, the moon high over their heads seeming to rush its descent into the new day. She closed her eyes and laughed, a sweet, tinkling thing, and smiled a grin bigger and brighter than the snow in all the mountaintops. He was giving her bliss, and in exchange received his own, a warmth and lightness flooding his enchanted limbs at the delight of her body embracing his. He had never expected this intimacy. Affection. Desire. Not from a creature as lovely as her. But this intimacy was at great cost. 

They were both so occupied that he did not feel the spindle tumble out of his pocket, falling gently into the snow. He felt the heat return to his skin, sudden discomfort to his heat, and felt the clothing tighten over his torso and legs. 

Perhaps it took him too long to notice, but he was otherwise distracted. 

So was the witch Rey. 

He was a demon once more, and she did not yet see, her eyes were still shut as she laughed and panted with each thrust of his body. If she felt the claws curling at her side, she made no mention of it.

He felt the panic descend on him, but her hand bit into the fur now covering his bicep.

“Don’t stop,” she mewled. “So close.”

He wanted to pause to recover the spindle, but he knew he was approaching climax as well.

When she finally broke down, shuddering in ecstacy, it was his turn to follow once more. His pleasure was swift and demanding, and he growled deeply, hungrily, inhumanly. Hastily, before she could recover, he withdrew himself from her, and knelt in the snow, stuffing the spindle back into his pocket.

Though he turned back quickly, faster than his initial transformation, when he looked up again, he knew it was too late. 

Still panting, she rested on her elbows, legs still exposed and parted for him, her eyes curious. She had seen...something. Knew something. He couldn’t explain. Couldn’t defend. He waited for her to say something.

“You know,” she said finally, “It was rude of you not to ask my name first.”

Kylo, still kneeling, felt himself flush. “You’re right,” he mumbled, chastened.

“And I should have asked yours first.” She brushed idly at her skirt. “Though I believe we have already met.”

He rose cautiously. “We’ve never met before. There has been a misunderstanding.” He righted his trousers with no small difficulty.

“You don’t need to lie,” she said, her voice cold as she finally drew her skirts down once more. “Not to me, and certainly not to yourself.”

He straightened his shirt. He had forgotten how cold it was. The chill bit through the thin fabric. He couldn’t stay like this. There was no point to suffering. 

She knew. She knew and despised him for it.

“I do not wish to cause you further harm,” he admitted truthfully. “I will not trouble you any longer, _Fraulein_.”

Fast as he could manage, he scurried away into the woods in shame and retreat. He had never felt so good and wanted and desired before, and he had been clumsy and foolish. She knew what he was. She knew he had lied. He ruined it, the only good thing he'd ever known.

“Come back,” the white goddess called. The wind whipped violent against him, causing tree limbs to smack against him, but still he fled, the chiming in the wind a mournful racket now.

“ _Kylo_ ,” he almost thought he heard her call.

He vanished back into the underworld and emerged by the stream where he had left his sack. Just as he arrived, he felt the sky change into a lighter blue, and he had barely managed to undress before the sun rose and he felt his body change once more, fur and hooves and horns restored. But even restored to his true form, there was pain now. Anguish he couldn't give voice to.

Perhaps he had been beautiful, if only for a few hours. But there was cruelty in that beauty, and Kylo could not forgive himself. He had been too afraid of Rey’s scorn to show her the love he held, so close and deep in his heart. 

A year passed before he would emerge again, torturing his captured children and preparing them for his master's cruel purposes. He did not relish this work, but it was the only distraction he had from thinking of the Bright One, of Rey, who let him love her even as he lied to her. He could not forgive himself. 

The next time he emerged, he did not feel the excitement of perhaps seeing her again. He did not feel for her magic signature in villages. He did not eagerly look for shoes waiting outside the doors. He blanched at every sound on the wind.

He could find her and explain. He could always tell her the truth: he had misbehaved, disobeyed his master, stole a coin and lied to her because she had deeply enchanted his heart, a part a monster like him was not supposed to have. 

He was not supposed to have these feelings, much less give them voice, so he had stolen the love of a beautiful woman, used her, and even when she confronted him he would not tell her the truth.

The only friend he might have once had now hated him, and he deserved it.

The Christmas season was long and lonely. He was more productive than he had been in decades, now, so focused was he in hiding his misery.

Christmas Eve came, and he was determined to outdo himself. There were new villages appearing all over the mountains now, villages with people who were too foolish to know the rules and customs. Perfect for him; naughty children ripe for the picking.

He heaved his sack on his shoulders as he had for a century and marched off into the village.

He knew the child in the first house was naughty; this he had no doubt of. He clambered through the silent, unsuspecting town towards the house.

The door was already askew on its hinges.

He pushed it open, the smell of fresh blood filling his nostrils, sweet and heady.

He stalked around the house until he found the bodies. They were still steaming in the winter night air.

He should have been angry that someone had taken the children from him.

But when the shock disappeared, he felt a creeping respect for the murderer. He couldn't deny the craftsmanship of it all. Slits all up and down their bellies, bodies stuffed with straw and rocks.

It was brutal and gruesome and he had never seen anything like it.

He vanished out the door and proceeded to the next house. He found more of the killer's handiwork up and down the street, blood and dismemberment peppering the village.

He had to find this murderer, this demon, see if it was still here. 

Another rival had overtaken his village, and he was furious.

He tramped through the town, not caring what racket his hooves and chains made as he ran. He looked for open doors, blood at the threshold. The town had not merely been visited by a rival spirit; it had been massacred.

For a moment, he paused, almost certain he saw footprints in the snow of two feet, one larger than the other.

He was imagining things again. He had to be.

Finally, he rounded a corner and heard a sound.

The wind carried to him the familiar sound of chimes.

Kylo froze in the street and watched as a figure emerged from a house. 

It was a terrifying woman, a stooped crone with lanky white hair like matted cobwebs, a long hooked nose and a mouth full of jagged teeth. 

In her hands was a familiar knife, a wicked silver blade he remembered from the year before.

The name slipped out of his mouth in disbelief.

" _Rey?"_

The crone froze and turned towards him, cold dark eyes assessing him.

She stalked closer.

A gravelly voice called out to him.

"I have missed you, Kylo."

He had once been so petrified to tell her the truth about what he was, about the charm that he had requested only to make himself pleasing to her.

But as she approached him, the crone returned the blade to a pouch on her waist and turned once more into the woman in white, beautiful and immaculate against the moonlit snow. An elf queen. An angel.

This had to be a trick. Rey was kind and giving and rewarded children. She couldn't be responsible for the carnage he had seen. 

He couldn't believe it. But as she faced him, he recognized the gleam in her eyes. Rey was both the giver of coins and the killer he had both admired and feared.

"You're not the only one with secrets, my lover," she said, reaching a hand toward him and caressing his furry cheek.

Finally, the words came to him.

"What...are you?"

"I have always been this," she said softly. "But I have not allowed you to see."

Rey, a Weiße Frau, was a patroness of children and weaving. She would bless towns that spun beautiful cloth and listened to her commands; namely, not to weave on holidays.

“It is my purpose to remind them,” she said, her tone flat. “If they do not rest, do not cherish their families, they will suffer. I keep order. It is not a pretty business, but it is what I demand.”

She would never come without warning, and those who failed to listen, young and old, would suffer the consequences.

And she had spared her shambling, grumbling shadow admirer from seeing those consequences. She would disappear from a village only to reappear at the other side where he could not see her pass through again, removing the blade and assuming her wicked form. She had spared him from the heights of her monstrosity. She had deceived him as well.

"My deception," she concluded, "was far worse than yours, _liebchen_."

"What do you mean?" he asked. Her hand, bloody but still delicate and somehow still hauntingly warm, still cradled his face as they spoke.

"I knew who you were the moment I saw you in that ridiculous suit," she said. "I let you play the game with me, challenging you to see if you would be honest with me." 

She pouted. "I was hurt that even after your charm broke you wouldn't tell me. But I guess I'm not any different."

He staggered, taken aback. "You knew?"

She laughed, looking at the ground. "As soon as I saw you. You can hide your horns, but your shadow can't lie."

He looked to see his moon shadow, hulking and crowned with the long spears that sprouted from his brow.

“You knew it was a charm?”

She laughed the tinkling laugh he had grown so fond of. 

“You think I would not know Frau Holda’s magic? She is my kin.” She frowned, suddenly serious. “She gave me back your coin. I wanted you to keep it.”

“You...you left it for me?”

She smiled. “It was optimistic of me. I’d hoped you’d find it. Find me. Keep me company. I tried to leave one extra coin in every town, just in case we just missed crossing paths. I enjoyed the nights you’d come with me, even if you’d try not to let me know you were there. Your presence made me feel...joyful. Excited about what I was doing.” She looked down at her knife. “Less ashamed of what I do, because there was someone else who did it, too. Kept these brutal codes. I knew you wouldn’t judge.”

She looked at him again, forest-green eyes seeking. “I just wish...I wish you’d have said something to me before.”

“I couldn’t,” he said quietly, earnestly. “I didn’t know how. I’m a beast; I know so little, but I know what I am. I didn’t know if you would be repulsed by me, beautiful as you are…”

She looked at his feet, avoiding his gaze. His tail swished with his anxiety. 

“This whole misunderstanding is my fault, Kylo. I feel like I have been lying to you, and that is why you had to lie to me. I am both crone and sprite; that is my nature. I was afraid to show my other side to you for much the same reason you hid from me. I cared what you thought of me. I feared that maybe you would stop coming with me if you knew the truth.”

Kylo swallowed the unfamiliar emotion in his throat. “Do you forgive my deception, my disguise, my reluctance to reveal my true form to you last Christmas eve?”

“I do,” she said, eyes locked on his. 

“And do you accept me as I am, in this form?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “If you would do the same for me.”

She removed the knife off from its scabbard on her waist, and Kylo watched as her mahogany hair grew fine and white and matted, her skin grew tattered and wrinkled and worn, her hands turned bony and aged, and her teeth turned into harsh daggers. 

There was an ugliness to this crone, certainly, but when he looked into her eyes, still deep as evergreens, he could see nothing but loveliness.

“Do you accept me as I am?” she asked. “In both forms I take?”

“Yes,” he exhaled truthfully. “I love you no matter how you appear.”

“And I love you,” she said. “Monstrous as we are.”

He did not hesitate to wrap his clawed fingers around her head and press his lips to hers. Fangs met in a monstrous, deep kiss, full of apologies and want and love.

Rey broke away finally, a devious smile curving her lips. 

“Would you like to join me, sweet Kylo, no matter which forms we take?”

“I would like that very much,” he said, but somberly, he lifted his chain. “But what can I do? I am beholden to my master.”

Rey’s wicked smile only grew. “Just say the word. Say you wish to be mine.”

“I wish to belong to no one or nothing but you.”

“That’s enough,” she said, grabbing a link of his chain in her withered hand. With her other hand, she raised her knife high and slashed with all her might.

With a loud crash of metal on metal, Kylo’s chains broke and fell to the snow-covered ground at his feet. 

He gasped as he felt the charms controlling vanish like steam into the air, but his body remained the strange demonic form he had grown to recognize and hate. 

“You are mine for as long as you wish to be my companion,” she said, sheathing her knife once more and turning into a maiden again. “No more shuffling or rattling or hiding. We walk together now, all through the Christmas season and beyond. You don’t have to flee to the underworld. You serve no master, only your heart. You may come with me until you no longer wish it.”

“I cannot imagine that time may ever come,” he said. He felt his heart, alive once again, grow light with adoration for Rey, the beautiful, powerful sorceress, but a small terror gnawed at him. He looked at his clawed hands, his fur, his hooves.

“Why didn’t you change me? Don’t you want me to be appealing to you?”

She smiled at him and raised a hand to his face once more.

“There was nothing I needed to change,” she said. “You’re beautiful to me as you are.”

They kissed again, deep and passionate until the village began to stir and the church bells tolled the news of the Christkind’s birth. 

As the sun began to rise, an eager, albeit sleepy, child peering out into the lane saw a beautiful maiden dressed in white, strolling hand-in-hand through the village with a tall, dark-haired man, draped in black furs with horns reaching out toward the sky, looks of love passing easily between them. 

The child watched until the two ran out to the forest at the edge of the village. The wind chimed softly as the snow flurries danced around them and they disappeared into the fading night.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a German-inspired fairty tale, so they lived happily ever after, ignore the screams of the townspeople as they wake up and discover their flayed friends and neighbors, Rey and Kylo are in wuv. uwu Merry Chimmas.


End file.
